Spring So Far

Whew! What a Spring it's been so far. No time to go into much detail, but I've had a blast doing a little work educating the public. Led a girl scout troup on a tour to the Raptor Banding Station and helped out with an event at the Seneca Park Zoo teaching middle schoolers about Raptors. Was rather unsure of myself during the girl scout tour, but don't think I did too terribly for a first time on my own. I know I'll get better at it with more time and experience.

A stop by one of BBRR's Raptor banding stations brought about amazing sights, wide eyes, smiles, and great pictures. I was lucky enough to go out on a day with a pretty steady flow of birds. The BIC (bander in charge) and another BBRR volunteer who's currently a bander in training (how exciting!) were even joking, "Okay, 12 minutes until the next bird." because they were catching something every half hour. BBRR has something called Adopt-a-Hawk; many not-for-profits have similar programs. After banding a Sharpie, we all went outside to take its picture so someone could adopt it later on. After taking it's portrait, the BIC said, "Okay Amanda, now take off your camera..."

Now, I was plenty happy just being there and getting to witness the process of catching a raptor and banding it.

Me-"Are you serious?!!"
BIC-"Well, yeah. Now c'mon, put your camera down and come over here. You're going to grab the legs first, up close to the body just like you would do with a songbird....."

Next thing I knew:A half-hour later (on the dot):
Did I mention that I had spent the morning at BBBO mending mist-nets and banding songbirds? Amazing day. I want to do this stuff everyday, all the time. <3 Birds. :)

Take nothing but pictures (and maybe the trash of jerks who came before you), leave nothing but footprints.